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A Cynic Preparation for Paul's Gospel for Jew and Greek, Slave and Free, Male and Female1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

F. Gerald Downing
Affiliation:
(15 Lowick Avenue, Bolton BL3 2DS, England)

Abstract

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Type
Short Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

2 Gal 2.9 has, of course, to be taken along with 1 Cor 9.20 and 2 Cor 11.24.

3 Noting the proper caution entered by Koester, H., ‘I Thessalonians – Experiment in Christian Writing’, Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History (Essays presented to George Hunstanton Williams. Church, R. F. and George, T., ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1979) 41Google Scholar: the supposed ‘formulae’ are never repeated by Paul.

4 Thus, for instance, when J. P. Sampley writes on ‘From Text to Thought World’, it is to Paul's thought world that he moves without further explanation, not to Paul's hearers, let alone his early hearers; in Pauline Theology 1 (J. M. Bassler, ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 314.Google Scholar

5 Most studies on early Paul focus on his links with the hellenistic synagogues and their supposed missionary propaganda (see below and the next two notes). On 1 Thess 1.9–10 compare the discussion in Munck, J., ‘I Thess. 1.9–10 and the Missionary Preaching of Paul’, NTS 9 (1962/1963) 95110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing that it is an ad hoc formulation; Collins, R. F., ‘Pre-Pauline Traditions’, in Studies on the First Letter to the Thessalonians (BETL 66; Leuven: Peeters, 1984) 20–2Google Scholar, affording no sign of interest in the issue posed here; so too, Donfried, K. P., ‘The Early Paul’, in The Thessalonian Correspondence (ed. Collins, R. F.; BETL 87; Leuven: Peeters, 1990) 20–3Google Scholar; Wanamaker, A, The Epistles to the Thessalonians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids/Exeter: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1990) 84–9Google Scholar. Wanamaker doubts whether this is either a ‘formula’ (or pre-Pauline), but also offers no indication of any attempt to ‘unpack’ what this ‘summary’ may be supposed to have ‘summarised’; cf. also Holtz, T., Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher (EKKNT 13; Zürich: Benziger, 1986) 5464Google Scholar. Other recent studies whose titles might lead the reader to expect an attempt to reconstruct the content of Paul's initial approach to gentiles neither include nor refer to any such discussion; e.g., Beker, J. C., Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980)Google Scholar; Lüdemann, G., Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles (London: SCM, 1984)Google Scholar; Becker, J., Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993) 86–7 and 118Google Scholar (130–40, ‘First Thessalonians as Evidence of Antiochene Mission Theology’, deals only with instruction for the young congregation); Goulder, M., A Tale of Two Missions (London: SCM, 1994)Google Scholar. Bovon, F., ‘Pratiques Missionnaires’, RTP 114 (1982) 369–81Google Scholar, touches on relevant issues (‘contextualisation’, ‘accessibility’) but with no detail nor further promising references. It is obviously difficult to establish even a carefully qualified negative generalisation. The discussion that follows attempts to engage with quite a wide range of nonetheless relevant studies.

6 On the question of Hellenistic Jewish proselytising, ‘missionary’ activity, see, e.g., Segal, A. F., Paul the Convert (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1990) ch. 3Google Scholar, ‘Conversion in Paul's Society’, 72–114. Though apologetic and polemic for internal consumption are well evidenced, and gentiles were influenced, with some making a full conversion, there is little to support a picture of any widespread deliberate ‘missionizing’ by Jewish groups; so, too, Goodman, M., ‘Proselytising in Rabbinic Judaism’, JTS (NS) 40 (1989) 175–85.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Bussmann, C., Themen der paulinischen Missionspredigt auf dem Hintergrund der spätjüdisch-hellenistischen Missionsliteratur (EHS 23.3, Bern: Lang, 1971)Google Scholar. The material collected is clearly apposite, but the question of its impact on gentiles not yet drawn into the ambit of the synagogues is not touched on; also J. Becker, Paul, 43 and 55–6; Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 85; Seeley, D., Deconstructing the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 145–8.Google Scholar

8 Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 7.

9 Cf. Conzelmann, H., 1 Corinthians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 205Google Scholar. Senft, C., La première épître de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens (CNT 2nd series 7; Lausanne; Delachaux et Niestlé, 1979) 22Google Scholar, concludes that in Corinth in particular Paul had to learn ‘un langage nouveau’ as he faced ‘un pagano-Christianisme tout neuf’.

10 See, e.g., Barclay, J. M. G., Obeying the Truth (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988) 52.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Wedderburn, A. J. M., Baptism and Resurrection (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987)Google Scholar; and Plunkett, M. A., Sexual Ethics and the Christian Life: A Study of 1 Corinthians 6:12–7:7 (Diss.; Princeton, 1988).Google Scholar

12 Malherbe, A. J., ‘Herakles’, RAC 14 (1988) 573Google Scholar. In Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989)Google ScholarIntroduction, 8, Malherbe concludes that ‘Paul knew these [mainly Cynic] traditions first-hand, not through the mediation of other Jews before him who had come to terms with the Greek experience.’

13 Downing, F. G., Cynics and Christian Origins (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992) 61–3 and 153.Google Scholar

14 Betz, H. D., Galatians (Hermeneia: Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 181201Google Scholar. The likely social impact is summarised, ‘Introduction’, 3, but not the cultural overtones of the three pairs taken together.

15 H. D. Betz, Galatians, 190.

16 Plutarch de Alex, magni fort. 329CD; only the earlier part of the passage is cited by Betz, 190 n. 71.

17 Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.63; Jüthner, Julius, Hellenen und Barbaren aus der Geschichte des Nationalsbewusstseins (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1923) 54–5.Google Scholar

18 Antisthenes in Diogenes Laertius 6.1; Lucian Demonax 34.

19 -Anacharsis, Ps., -Diogenes, ps., etc., in The Cynic Epistles (Malherbe, A. J., ed.; Missoula, Montana: Scholars, 1977).Google Scholar

20 Dio Chrysostom (of Prusa) Discourse 9.1, and 4.4–6 and 73–4, etc., and the passage quoted, 10.4 (LCL).

21 E.g., H. D. Betz, Galatians, 192.

22 Baldry, H. C., The Unity of Mankind in Greek Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1965) 152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Arrian's Discourses of Epictetus 2.19.20–1 and 2.9.20–1 (LCL).

24 Diogenes Laertius 7.12.

25 Philo Quod omnis prober liber sit 121–5; ps.-Crates 34; Diogenes Laertius 6.74–5. On Stoics and slavery, see further Baldry, Unity, 113–203.

26 Epictetus 3.24.65–8; cf. 4.1.114–15.

27 Dio 14.10 and 15.32; cf. Discourse 10, again.

28 Lucian Hermotimus 24 (LCL).

29 E.g., Cameron, Averil, ‘Neither Male nor Female(sic), Greece and Rome 27 (1980) 60–8Google Scholar, simply assumes that only ‘spiritual equality’ was offered (64).

30 As forcefully argued by H. D. Betz, Galatians, 2–3, 29, and 189–90.

31 Jüthner, Hellenen, 54–5; cf. Goulet-Cazé, M.-O., L'ascese cynique (Paris: Vrin, 1986) 214–40Google Scholar, and eadem, ‘Le comportement social’ in ‘Le cynisme à l'époque impériale’, ANRW 2.36.4, 2746–63.Google Scholar

32 Antisthenes in Diogenes Laertius 6.12; Musonius, Discourse 3, in Musonius Rufus (C. Lutz, ed.; New Haven: Yale University, 1947)Google Scholar; cf. also ps.-Crates 28.

33 Palladius Lausiac History 49; Gregory Nazianzus Discourse 18.7 (cf. 7.23); Gregory of Nyssa De virginitate 20; John Chrysostom De sancto Ignatio l;In Matthaeum 73.3.

34 Lucian Fugitivi 27.

35 Philodemus in Andria, R. G., ‘Diogene nei Papiri Ercolanesi’, Cronache Ercolanesi 10 (1980)129–51.Google Scholar

36 Grant, R. M., ‘Neither Male nor Female’, Biblical Research 37 (1992) 514.Google Scholar

37 Wire, A. C., The Corinthian Women Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990)Google Scholar, too readily dismisses Cynic analogies, 122; on which see M. Plunkett, Sexual Ethics.

38 E.g., Cameron, ‘Neither Male nor Female’, 64.

39 See ps.-Diogenes 34.3; Malherbe, A. J., ‘Pseudo-Heraclitus Epistle 4; The Divinisation of the Wise Man’, JAC 21 (1978) 4264Google Scholar; and, e.g., Epictetus’ Cynic Odysseus, 3.24.16.

40 Ps.-Crates 23, etc.; cf. M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, ‘L'accoutrement’, in ‘Le cynisme’, 2738–46.

41 Diogenes Laertius 6.85; cf. the passage from Lucian's Hermotimus cited, n. 28, above.

42 A. C. Wire, The Women Prophets, 123–5. Witherington's, B. collection of Rabbinic passages (‘Rite and Rights for Women’, NTS 27 [1981] 593604)CrossRefGoogle Scholar are not provided with any anchorage in the first century; nor – as he himself notes – are they concerned at all directly with humans' relations to one another (593).

43 A. J. Malherbe, Paul, 8, again: ‘Paul knew these [mainly Cynic] traditions first-hand, and not through the mediation of other Jews who before him had come to terms with the Greek experience … Paul himself used the philosophic traditions with at least as much originality as his contemporaries did.’ I hope I may in the not too distant future publish a fairly comprehensive survey of vestiges of Paul's use of Cynic ideas and language, especially in his earliest presentation of his gospel in the Greek towns – but also (as Malherbe and others have already shown) in many later discussions, even after he had himself come to find the enthusiasm of some of his converts for some aspects of Cynic radicalism quite unacceptable: on which see Malherbe, A. J., Paul and the Thessalonians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 99101Google Scholar; Vollenweider, S., Freiheit als neue Schöpfung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989) 16, 24–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and M. Plunkett, Sexual Ethics.